Talk:Andrey Vyshinsky
I went ahead and put the JS related categories here, but I think given the prominence of the position of US AG in OTL, we should probably move them to the Andy Wyszynski redirect. TR (talk) 19:48, April 26, 2015 (UTC) :Smart. :You know, I really don't like the fact that HT had all the Stalinists follow Stalin's parents as immigrants to this country. If the point of the JS project was to tell an "It Can Happen Here" story, show some home-grown leaders becoming corrupted. So much shock value is lost if the story becomes "It Can Happen Here . . . If We Import The Entire Politburo In Bulk!" :And of course I know that HT does have Hoover become corrupted by the Stalinist influence. But if we need to import all but one of our tyrants, and that one gets along famously with the autocratic cadre of a foreign land, what exactly is HT trying to suggest? Turtle Fan (talk) 20:53, April 26, 2015 (UTC) ::Well, it isn't specifically a "it can happen here" story (although totalitarian US stories will inevitably engage that theme). In his dedication to Janis Ian, he describes hearing the line "Stalin was a Democrat" from her song "god and the fbi" and then wondering how Stalin would become a Democrat, and what sort of Dem he would have been, etc. So this is a story more interested in looking at what would happen if an Americanized and yet still recognizable Stalin became POTUS, than sounding a dire "it can happen here" warning. ::I will also say that in the novel, HT does sufficiently flesh out the Stalinists so that their presence feels fairly natural in short order. So it's something a mixed bag in the final product. ::But, I agree that there were some missed opportunities by importing Stalin's henchmen instead of looking at the homegrown options. Steele is sufficiently opposed to Marxism in both the story and the novel that there are probably any number of more authoritarian native born "patriotic" USians HT could have used. He could have dug A. Mitchell Palmer out of mothballs for a second turn at AG for example. And let's face it, he picked the prize authoritarian in J. Edgar. :::Surely Steele would have found Joe McCarthy infinitely useful, likely even more so than Hoover. Edwin Walker could have led political purges of the armed forces. And given the old canard about how integration equaled communism, you could have Steele rubbing elbows with various prominent racists. Turtle Fan (talk) 16:55, April 28, 2015 (UTC) :::I don't know why HT did it this way but I think he probably would have brought someone like Beria over too, if he hadn't used J. Edgar in the short story. On the other hand, the lyric "Stalin was a Democrat" comes from the Janis Ian song "God & The FBI" so maybe not. ML4E (talk) 18:04, April 28, 2015 (UTC) ::::Far too early in history for Tailgunner Joe, and ultimately, McCarthy never had the clout with law enforcement that Hoover had. Whereas by 1933, Hoover had already demonstrated the ability to zero in on "dangerous radicals" and "subversives" who wanted to "ruin" the country, and a general willingness to bend the law if he believed it was for the "greater good". He's arguably the most natural fit for this regime. :::::McCarthy was first elected in 1946--too late to help Steele build the regime from the ground up, but time enough to be a prime henchman for the final act. And I'm not suggesting he become Director, either; there are plenty of other jobs in the administration for him. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:19, April 29, 2015 (UTC) ::::The race thing is somewhat interesting. Initially Steele seems sympathetic to civil rights, but it's limited to talk. He doesn't actually do anything concrete. By the 1950s, a character jokes that Steele had solved racial inequality by treating everyone equally like n-ggers. Conversely, he doesn't single out people pushing for civil rights for special scrutiny, either. TR (talk) 18:17, April 28, 2015 (UTC) :::::Interesting. That actually sounds very believable: as a young man who is not sufficiently powerful to step outside of the established political system, he takes a position common among the liberal elite of the day; and then as an old man he reverts to something not far from his record on race relations in OTL (of course race relations in the USSR were pretty dissimilar from what they were in the US, though no less thorny). Turtle Fan (talk) 02:19, April 29, 2015 (UTC) ::(Incidentally, HT does take a moment to give his favorite whipping boy an uncredited cameo as an up-and-coming Assistant AG whom Charlie Sullivan thinks could be a threat to Hoover at the end of the novel.) TR (talk) 22:11, April 26, 2015 (UTC) :::I thought it might have been a reference to him but wasn't sure. Incidentally, when I first read one of the novel summaries, I thought the description of a hard scrubbed upbringing and out of the establishment status that Steele had was inspired by the same person. ML4E (talk) 18:04, April 28, 2015 (UTC) ::::I suspect HT had him in mind to some extent when creating Steele. While Steele never actually boils his actions down to "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal," he sure as hell follows that philosophy. TR (talk) 18:17, April 28, 2015 (UTC) :::::When I saw "favorite whipping boy" I initially assumed you meant Strom Thurmond. Not sure where I came up with that, exactly, though he has drawn his share of potshots over the years as well. :::::Interestingly, Nixon was undone by Mark Felt, anonymously leaking information to gung-ho anti-administration journalists. Felt studied at Hoover's elbow and Nixon's downfall is certainly the fate that awaited any President who drew Hoover's ire. I find that interesting as an added wrinkle. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:19, April 29, 2015 (UTC)